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Displaying 1 - 20 of 31 results
Acting Like Apes
The Bible’s Alpha Males
A few weeks ago, my family went ape. Literally. Within the space of seven days, we visited the primate exhibits at the San Diego Zoo, watched an IMAX film about Jane Goodall, borrowed an educational video about apes from the library and...
Bible Review, June 2004
Exorcising Demons
Pazuzu...Lamashtu...Khatyu...Sheseru...Sasam...Lilith...Asmodeus...Beelzebub.... Names to conjure with. Literally. Years ago, when I was a student at Harvard, my teacher Frank Moore Cross raised a puzzling question: Why do demons—so prominent...
Bible Review, October 2004
Did Moses Have Horns?
Michelangelo’s monumental Moses immediately captures the attention of visitors to the church of St. Peter in Chains in Rome. The sculptor has created a vision not merely of the lawgiver, but of Israel’s God as conceived by pre-modern...
Bible Review, February 1988
The First Peace Treaty Between Israel and Egypt
3000 year old treaty sealed by marriage of Pharaoh’s daughter to King Solomon.
The recent peace treaty between Egypt and Israel may have a historical precedent from almost 3000 years ago. Then too, these two nations wisely decided that peaceful co-existence was better than military confrontation. The peace accord in...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 1979
“Love Your Neighbor as Yourself”—What It Really Means
It is one of the fundamental commandments of the Torah (the Pentateuch or Five Books of Moses). It is exemplary of Jewish morality, and it very early characterized the Christian faith as well. For 2,000 years, however, it has been...
Biblical Archaeology Review, July/August 1990
Who Wrote Second Isaiah?
The Book of Isaiah contains the most astounding prophecy in the Hebrew Bible. Ostensibly, the Prophet Isaiah, who flourished in the eighth century B.C.E., according to Isaiah 1:1, accurately foresaw events that occurred a couple hundred years...
Bible Review, October 2003
How Inferior Israelite Forces Conquered Fortified Canaanite Cities
For over 50 years now, a school of thought associated with the names of the great German scholars Albrecht Alt and Martin Noth has espoused a particular view of what is described in the...
Biblical Archaeology Review, March/April 1982
The World’s Oldest Poorbox
I believe I may have discovered the world’s earliest poorbox—a tangible expression of Israel’s ancient concern for the needy among its people. On one of my frequent visits to Jerusalem’s Rockefeller Museum, I noticed an object that I had seen...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1992
Bah, Humbug!
A scholar rips Handel’s Messiah
Every December, concert halls and churches throughout the English-speaking world resound with the strains of George Frederic Handel‘s mighty Messiah. For centuries, music lovers have gone home humming the arias and choruses that Handel‘s...
Bible Review, December 2002
Crosses in the Dead Sea Scrolls: A Waystation on the Road to the Christian Cross
The relationship of the Dead Sea Scrolls to early Christianity has absorbed scholars since the dramatic discovery more than 30 years ago. Early, exaggerated commentaries which, for example, stated that the Teacher of Righteousness was Jesus...
Biblical Archaeology Review, November/December 1979
Mounds of Mystery
Where the Kings of Judah Were Lamented
At the beginning of the 20th century, when Jerusalem, still centered around its ancient core, was surrounded by agricultural land and orchards, 20 mysterious earth-and-stone mounds rose above the city’s western horizon, clearly visible from...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2003
Who Was Buried in the Tomb of Pharaoh’s Daughter?
The Tomb of Pharaoh’s Daughter is one of Jerusalem’s most neglected sites, despite being one of the most complete, distinctive and magnificent First Temple period tombs in the city. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists visit the City...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 2013
Royal Palace, Royal Portrait?
The Tantalizing Possibilities of Ramat Raḥel
The first Judahite royal palace ever exposed in an archaeological excavation is bei ng rediscovered. And with this renewed interest come echoes of what is probably one of the bitterest rivalries in the history of Israeli ar chaeology—between...
Biblical Archaeology Review, September/October 2006
Is Psalm 45 an Erotic Poem?
You probably know the old joke about the psychiatrist who gave his patient a series of Rohrschach tests. The patient identified every single inkblot pattern as depicting a man and a woman copulating. The doctor then pronounced his official...
Bible Review, April 2004
Circumcision
The Private Sign of the Covenant
And God said to Abraham, “As for you, you must keep my covenant, you and your seed after you throughout their generations. This is my covenant ... every male of yours must be circumcised. When you circumcise your foreskin flesh, it will...
Bible Review, August 2004
Let My People Go and Go and Go and Go
Egyptian records support a centuries-long exodus
Nothing in the archaeological record of Egypt directly substantiates the Biblical story of the Exodus. Yet a considerable body of Egyptian material provides such close analogies to the Biblical account that it may, in part, serve as indirect...
Biblical Archaeology Review, January/February 1998
What’s an Egyptian Temple Doing in Jerusalem?
Recent attacks on the historicity of the United Monarchy of David and Solomon (in the tenth century B.C.) have focused on the scant archaeological remains that have been discovered in...
Biblical Archaeology Review, May/June 2000
Moses
From vigilante to lawgiver
Moses’ brief and violent encounter with the Egyptian taskmaster in Exodus reads like a crime report or movie script: Moses … went out to his brothers and saw their labors. He saw an Egyptian man striking a Hebrew man, one of his brothers. He...
Bible Review, February 2003
Santa and His Asherah
The ancient Near Eastern roots of American Yuletide customs are manifold and fascinating. I will concentrate here on just two major points: that the Christmas tree was originally a symbol of the Canaanite goddess Asherah and that Santa Claus...
Bible Review, December 1998